


Coming Home

by MeredithBrody



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Alternate Universe, Destiny rewrite, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-12
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-29 05:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1001619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeredithBrody/pseuds/MeredithBrody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes 75 years, but she comes home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Grab your tissues folks, it's another Destiny rewrite.

She had been waiting for this day for two years. He'd been waiting considerably longer. If he'd been waiting at all. She had liked to think he had, in her slow journey back to Earth. They returned a few days earlier, but she'd had to be debriefed before Columbia's return could even be announced. She had waited until she had been given permission to visit Jon. She had been surprised to make it back in his lifetime, but she was glad. Everyone else was gone, but not him.

So she was stood in the kitchen of the house he shared with a caretaker, whom had let her in and told her to go in and see him. She was hesitating only because she was afraid. What if he hadn't missed her at all. 75 years had passed for him. He had probably long since given her up for dead. She wouldn't blame him if he had.

It took half an hour, but she finally talked herself into walking into the room. She blinked as she looked him over, he had aged well from what she could see. She still saw the man he had been the last time they had been in the same room. She had to resist running over to him. Instead choosing a far statelier and calm greeting, clamping down on her nerves as she did. "Hello Jonathan."

"Erika?" He asked, looking up at her through hooded eyes, and she realised that he had never expected to see her, not like she was now. She was quite impressed that he’d managed to say her name without suspicion or anger, she wasn’t sure if the roles had been reversed that she could say the same.

"It's me, honest." She smiled, stepping forward a little, then kneeling on the floor a few paces ahead of him. If her maths were right, he must have been 121 by now. She really had missed too much. Most of his life.

Jon, for his part, just continued staring at her and blinking slowly, as if he was trying to sort it all through in his mind. He reached out and patted her on the cheek then stared at her again before he spoke. "It can't be, you're missing."

"We're home." She muttered, placing her hand on top of his against her cheek. She knew this might be too much for him, for anyone. But she knew that she had had to see him. It was all she had wanted in all the time he had spent trying to get back. It was all for him.

"You haven't changed." He chuckled a few minutes later, and in that smile she saw all of him. The man she had been in love with for so long. Almost a century now. Though to her it hadn’t been nearly so long. She felt it, and she was sure he could too. Whatever connection they’d always had was still there. Pulling them together as it always had.

"It's a long story, but I'm home."

"I don't believe you." He dropped his hand, and she tried to stifle the groan she felt growing in her throat. It wouldn’t help either of them. Maybe she needed to tell him something that he knew. Something he'd remember. So she thought about the thing that had plagued her mind ever since Columbia had been attacked. That last meal, their last conversation. How they had joked, and how she had promised him that they would have dinner next time they were together.

"Remember the last time we were together, and I promised you that the next time we were in the same sector it was my turn to treat you to dinner. You wanted it to be anywhere but the Lotus Blossom, because Rebecca still worked there, and she and I never hit it off." She smiled, almost certain he'd remember that. Rebecca had been a contentious part of their shared history, and she wasn't innocent in what had happened. But they had been mostly civil as they'd grown up. By the time she went missing they weren't even glaring at each other any longer.

"I slept with you then broke up with her." Jon smiled a second later, and that was all she needed to know she'd broken through, at least a little bit. Enough to give her a glimmer of hope that she could get through to him and convince him that she was alive.

"I know you have lived your whole life without me, but you are all I've thought about, so I had to come and see you. If you'd rather I leave, I will." That was painful to admit, but if he didn't want her there she wasn't going to stay. She had to respect his wishes. He had surely done his grieving.

"How did you get back?" He asked, snapping her out of her reverie and showing that clearly he wasn't telling her to leave. He wanted the information, and she couldn't blame him. She hadn't wanted to go into details. She hadn't been proud of her decision, but the opinion of the crew had swayed her.

"We had to dilute time. It's only been two years for me since we went missing." She knew that was going to be hard to swallow, and she hated it herself. She had missed so much, but it seemed like no time had passed.

"But 75 years have passed." He pointed out, unnecessarily for her, but she understood. Or she tried to understand. Maybe turning the conversation off of her was the better idea. She wanted to hear about him, his adventures, his successes.

"I know. I want to hear about everything you have done, you've had 75 years to prove me right. All those things I said about you back when we were commanders." She smiled again, and beamed when Jon shared with her, and finally met her eyes properly. As soon as he did she felt the inexplicable pull she'd always felt when she was around him. He looked seriously at her, and she wondered if she'd finally managed to say something to pull him out.

"Erika, don't make this a joke. I'm just trying to understand what happened." He said, and now it was obvious. He still didn't believe her story. She mustn't have explained it well enough, which was a stupid mistake, she knew that much. She had to explain. He'd never believe her otherwise.

"Think about it. Jon, I was attacked by Romulans, they destroyed my warp drive. We had to overcharge the impulse drive to get going anywhere."

"So you had time dilution effects."

"I wanted to make it home. I didn't expect you to still be alive. Nobody else I knew is. Even my nieces, both gone."

"I was waiting for you. Somehow I knew you'd come back." He smiled slightly, then went back to staring into the middle distance. It seemed as though he wasn't computing that she was there. Stood in front of him in the flesh. She knew nothing would be as it was. But she could feel it.

"This is a lot to take in, I know. But I do want to tell you that I love you, and that that would never change." She muttered, hoping he believed that. It felt that this was far more painful for her than for him. She had constructed such a grand life for him in her mind, but reality didn't seem to be matching up, and all she wanted now was to hold him in her arms and tell him that she loved him. She always had and always would. Nothing would change that, not even 75 years apart.

"I know. How about we try that dinner, and then I can tell you." He smiled, and she suddenly felt as if the whole world lit around her. It had always been too much for her to hope, that Jonathan would still be alive when she got home, let alone open to listening to her. He could have gotten married, had children. Could have done so much without her. But the room they were in told a different story. They told the story of a successful man who had been lonely all these years. She looked around and then crouched in front of him before lifting his chin until his eyes met hers. At which point she gave him a gentle kiss then backed away again. If that was the last time she ever got to do that, at least she had the memory.


	2. Chapter 2

He laid in the bed and he knew the time was coming. He could feel it, however he tried to fight it, his body was giving up. He was old, there was no getting around that. Unlike Erika he hadn't had seven decades compressed into three years. He didn't begrudge her her youth, he celebrated it. He had been reminded how optimistic they'd both once been. As he laid there he was more convinced that today was the day. His last day. This calm May morning. It would be the last he saw.

Laid next to him was the person who made him keep fighting. Over the last year he had realised that all his mental plans, his hopes, had managed to come true. He had married his soulmate, and seen her flourish in a job that truly suited her experience. He had been rewarded by having someone love him unconditionally, and she was laid there beside him. When she had first returned, he'd been sceptical, but their connection had been as strong as ever, and he'd felt it pulling him to her. He couldn't ignore it, and for all those years, his thoughts had often been on her.

He realised she was stirring, and he used the last bit of his strength to shuffle a little closer to her. Kissing her shoulder as he did. "I will never be able to tell you all the ways that I love you, Erika Hernandez." He whispered in her ear, and smiled as she sat up, not after kissing him. It seemed she was sitting waiting for him to continue, to tell her whatever he was thinking. He knew this was going to be the problem, because she'd figure out what was happening before long. "But one day you will understand. If you have to go on without me for as long as I went without you, you will understand. This last year has meant the world to me. I got something I never expected, a second chance to fall in love with you." He smiled, and couldn't help but feel that was his greatest achievement in life.

"I wouldn't change any of this either." She smiled, leaning over him and kissed him. He tried to lift up and put more into the kiss, but he simply didn't have the energy. Instead he took another breath and carried on talking. Wanting to tell her everything he possibly could. He wanted her to know he had no regrets.

"You don't understand. I thought you were dead, for most of my life. Then you came back and it was miraculous and all I wanted was to scream from the rooftops that you were back. That I had you in my arms again. I knew nothing would be as it was. But we always had that connection, and no distance, no time, diminished it. In this last year I got everything I wanted. I finally managed to call you my wife. That is all I have ever wanted." He played with the ring on her finger. His matching one far too big on his withered hand. The signs that he had done what he had wanted, that she had agreed to marry him, and that was still magical to him.

"Jonathan, are you OK?" She asked, sounding completely terrified. He knew why, she wouldn't want him to be gone. He didn't want to leave her alone. But he simply didn't have the fight left in him. He was 122 years old. That was a grand age for any Human, and people rarely reached his age. He would be dying in his own bed. With his wife by his side he couldn't truly hope for anything more.

"I think it's time, Rike. It's time I let go. I can't go on fighting. I'm too old, to fragile." He told her. Smiling all the while. Wishing he could do more than roll over. He wanted to show her one last time how much he loved her, but he was done. His time was up.

"No, Jon. Please. I feel like I only just got you back." She pulled him into her arms, and he felt safe there, comforted and protected in the arms of his soulmate. He could happily stay like this, in his favourite place in the universe. He wasn't sad that he was dying, he knew life came to an end. He was sad for the grief it was going to cause Erika, when she didn't deserve any more. She had surely been through enough. Losing him, he hoped, would be her last major loss. She would have Veronica to depend on.

"I love you. I always have. Keep going, and prove why Starfleet still need old hands like you. Never let them push you around. Use Veronica, the two of you are a killer team." He imparted the last few words of wisdom he could. He hoped she remembered it in the months and years to come.

"I love you." She said simply in response, and he held her hand as tightly as he could against his side. Her breathing pleasantly caressing the side of his head. He couldn't help but feel at peace there.

"We had our fun, and I wouldn't change a minute of it." There was a truth to those words he would never be able to explain. And in the last year the impossible had happened. The love of his life had returned to him. Now she could go on, healthy and whole, and in time she could join him.

She still held him tightly in her lap, cradling him as if he was a child. He smiled again, then felt himself drifting. He heard Erika's sobs, and wanted to comfort her more than anything he had ever wanted. But he couldn't open his eyes, couldn't reach out for her. Everything was tiring, and he needed to trust the universe to take care of her, and just let go.


End file.
